Tag: breakfast

Philadelphia experienced its first brutally cold temperatures this week (it dropped to 14°F!) and we even had snowfall yesterday! So this weekend was spent indoors, listening to holiday albums of my youth. (Hanson’s “Snowed In,” anyone?) Yesterday, my boyfriend made us biscuits and mushroom gravy (with my homemade seitan & bean sausage) for breakfast and it was the absolutely perfect way to begin our lazy Saturday. (Though, admittedly, it was noon when we ate.) Today, I wanted to make pancakes but he requested waffles–with chocolate chips! So I obliged. This is what I came up with:

Ingredients

1-1/4 C flour

1/2 C rolled oats

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 C semi-sweet non-dairy chocolate chips

1 ripe banana

1-1/2 C non-dairy milk (soy, almond, rice, etc.)

1/4 C canola oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk with a fork until combined. Add chocolate chips and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, mash the banana with a fork until smooth. Add the milk, oil, and vanilla extract, whisking with a fork until combined.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir gently to combine.

While the batter rests, begin pre-heating your waffle iron to your desired crispness. If necessary, spray with oil to prevent waffles from sticking.

When the light turns green, use 1/3 cup scoops of the batter to fill each waffle mold.

The waffles are ready when steam stops rising out of the iron.

Top with vegan butter, maple syrup, and powdered sugar, or any toppings of your choice.

They are perfection! They are so light and fluffy yet still have that delectably crispy shell. I didn’t even take any pictures because they were devoured so quickly >_<

Now to continue this lazy weekend with some reading and knitting, while listening to ‘NSync’s “Home for Christmas” album…

Last week, Alex and I were craving pancakes but wanted something a little different from our usual carrot cake pancakes. I had one ripe banana and not much else… so I whipped up a batch of these plain pancakes that we ate with vegan butter and maple syrup, with a side of tempeh bacon. So delicious!

Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Stir well to combine, being careful not to overmix.

In an oiled, preheat skillet/griddle, add batter in scant 1/4 cup scoops. Cook in batches of three or four at a time (being careful not to overcrowd the skillet) for about 4 minutes (or until the tops look mostly cooked), then flip and cook until lightly browned, 2 more minutes.

Last weekend, Alex and I were in Philadelphia. It was our first time visiting the city so we did some research and made a list of all the vegan restaurants within 5 miles of our hotel. (Quite serendipitously, the current issue of Chickpea Magazine had a vegan guide to Philly! I took copious notes as I made my lists in Evernote.) One restaurant that did not come up on our radar during this research, however, was Vegan Commissary. It only opened in December 2013 so it is brand new, explaining why we only stumbled upon it on Saturday morning as we searched for a place to get vegan breakfast/brunch. For such a new restaurant, though, it already had a lot of good reviews on Yelp so we decided to go there.

…Man, oh, man, was this place amazing! I had the breakfast wrap while Alex had the tempeh hash with poached avocado. We then followed that up with cinnamon rolls and quinoa porridge. (Walking everywhere, especially in snow and slush, works up quite an appetite!) We were in absolute vegan food bliss.

Now, I didn’t get to try the tempeh hash with poached avocado but I decided to recreate it—or my version of it—for breakfast today. The following is what I came up with and it was quite divine, if I do say so myself.